San Francisco: Two tech giants racing for a lead in autonomous driving clashed on Monday in court as former Google car unit Waymo’s lawyer argued that Uber’s boss deliberately chose “to cheat” to get a leg up on competitors.

The accusations flew in the opening day of a blockbuster tech sector trial in which Google parent Alphabet’s Waymo division is seeking at least $1 billion (Dh3.67 billion) over the theft of secrets from its self-driving car programme. In opening remarks before the jury in San Francisco federal court, Waymo lawyer Charles Verhoeven maintained that Uber’s founder and former chief executive Travis Kalanick made the decision to use stolen trade secrets to enable the global ride-sharing giant to move into autonomous driving. Uber has denied the allegations, which stem from a lawsuit claiming that former Google car executive Anthony Levandowski took thousands of files before leaving the unit for a start-up called Otto later acquired by Uber.